17-year-old Brittanee Marie Drexel of New York Missing - Myrtle Beach

[TinkerBelly]

[quote author=rachy link=topic=19642.msg1733709#msg1733709 date=1286683137]
...........

The vigil will be at 7:30 p.m. April 25 at the Blue Water Resort. Anyone is welcome to participate. "We're doing it to keep her face out there because we don't want anybody to forget her," Wagner said.

http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2010/mar/31/photo-put-on-facebook/
[/quote]

I can't tell you how many times I thought of Brittanee when I was in Myrtle Beach last month.  Blue Water was right next door to where I stayed.  I kept looking around at the spaces between the resorts and thinking "I wonder if....." over and over again.

Such a sad story.

[rachy]

Was Brittanee captured by a sex offender? Police link convicted rapist in mysterious cold case of student who disappeared on Spring Break

The cold case of the missing teenage girl who disappeared while on spring break three years ago is now coming back into the spotlight as police identify a convicted sex offender as a ‘person of interest’.

Brittanee Drexel, who was 17 at the time of her ill-fated vacation, disappeared after leaving a group of friends at their hotel in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina around 9pm.

When she left the Blue Water Resort, she headed back to the room where she and some girlfriends were staying at the Bar Harbor Hotel which is just 1.4 miles away down a busy road.

Security footage at the Bar Harbor Hotel shows that Brittanee never made it there.

Instead, she vanished during that small stretch of a walk, and she has never been seen again.

The last trace of Brittanee came from her cell phone in Georgetown County, South Carolina, which is about 50 miles south of the hotel where she was last seen.
Brittanee, a high school junior from Rochester, New York, was not even supposed to be in Myrtle Beach when she disappeared. She had gotten into an argument with her mother who would not allow her to go on the trip with her older friends, and instead of staying at a friend’s home near Lake Ontario like she said she would, Brittanee went on the trip anyway.

Police still have not found the girl’s pink cell phone itself, but consider the fact that the signal had travelled so far south to mean that Brittanee was also taken to the area.

Throughout the multi-year search police have said that there were anywhere between one and three people of interest, but have never formally released the names of these individuals either to the press or to Brittanee’s family.

In August, however, Georgetown County police conducted an extremely thorough investigation of apartment number 22 in an area motel called Sunset Lodge.

A convicted sex offender named Raymond Moody, 51, checked into that room on April 24, 2009- the day before Brittanee disappeared.

‘We cannot eliminate him as a person of interest,’ Myrtle Beach police captain Joe Vella told FoxNews.

Moody was issued a speeding ticket in Surfside- a town in between Myrtle Beach and Georgetown County- the day after Brittanee disappeared.

His previous run-ins with the law were significantly more violent, and he is classified as a level 3 sex offender.

Moody spent 21 years in prison stemming back to a 1983 abduction and rape case of a 9-year-old California girl, and was considered the suspect in a number of similar rapes, but was never charged.

Police have stressed that while they are investigating Moody, this is not new.

‘Mr. Moody was a person that was investigated in this case. His hotel room was searched last year and he is one of many people that we have investigated during the course of this investigation,’ Myrtle Beach police captain David Knipe wrote in a statement to Carolina Live.

During that search of his apartment, police reportedly took pieces of the wallpaper from the bathroom, portions of the mattress cover, and sprayed an unknown substance on the sink, refrigerator, and curtains.

‘This is still an active investigation and we continue to follow any and every lead possible,’ Mr Knipe continued.

In addition to their suspicions about Moody’s involvement in Brittanee’s disappearance, police have also linked him to a very similar case where then 28-year-old Crystal Soles went missing in 2005- a year after Moody was released from prison. She was last seen in Andrews, South Carolina, which is to the east of Georgetown.

While police have said that they no longer feel that Brittanee is alive, her single mother Dawn is holding out hope.

‘Every day is a nightmare,’ she told FoxNews. ‘I miss her so much.’



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ing-Break.html

[Hayalet]

His offender details http://www.homefacts.com/offender-de...las-Moody.html

His last known address is pretty much out back of no where http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?rlz=1C...ed=0CCIQ8gEwAA

Route from where Brittanee went missing and his last known address http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?rlz=1C...ed=0CCIQ8gEwAA

[captainjillian]

Great find guys, I was just thinking about this case last week. Keep up the great updating!

[McMama]

I just got back from a Myrtle Beach stay, two days ago. I thought about this girl every time we drove up and down Ocean Blvd.

[mydeathspace]

If I am diagnosed with a really terrible type of Stage 4 cancer, in my last month of life (if the doctors could give me an exact "you will die on this day" type of statement), I bet you I could rid the US of 50 or more pedos.

[rachy]

here's another article about a impostor on facebook

Monica DeFilippo lives in Staten Island, N.Y., vacations in Myrtle Beach and has a 20-year-old daughter named Brittany, who became captivated by the disappearance of Brittanee Drexel.

The missing woman not only shares Brittany's name but also her age and that same petite frame with blonde hair and blue eyes. Drexel, like Brittany, lived in New York. She stole away to Myrtle Beach on spring break in 2009, the last time anyone saw her.

DeFilippo took her daughter to an event to raise awareness about Drexel, and they followed her case in news reports. So it particularly chilled the family when DeFilippo's daughter received a Facebook friend request from a person who gave a different girl's name, but the photo was Drexel.

"She wasn't going to accept the friendship, but I made her," DeFilippo said. "Because you never really know."

Brittany asked the stranger in a message why she used Drexel's photographs on the Facebook page. The person replied that those pictures were her own, DeFilippo said.

When a reporter sent a message to the person communicating with DeFilippo's daughter, the person did not respond and blocked the reporter from any further interaction.

Monica Caison, founder and director of the North Carolina-based CUE Center for Missing Persons, said she has seen more than 35 false profiles using Drexel's image on social media websites since Drexel went missing in April 2009.

"This is the new wave of social media with missing person cases. The exploitation level is so high," Caison said. "It's not just happened to Brittanee. It's all the high-profile cases, especially the young girls."

One person used Drexel's photo to participate in an online promotion, and the picture wound up on a commercial that ran during the Super Bowl, Caison said. She reports the phony profiles to law enforcement officers, and they generally disappear within a week.



The fleeting impostors only light up tip lines and distract from more promising leads, Caison said. In some cases, strangers go so far as to set up websites that take donations for a missing person.

Caison worries that tips could come to those people with no law enforcement experience or connections, so she presses to get the websites taken down. On top of the investigative risks, the impostors place an extra emotional burden on family members, Caison said.

"I don't know what it is that people want to do this type of thing, but they don't understand how it destroys a family," she said.

Drexel's mother, Dawn Drexel, said she gives every tip a close and hopeful look and wonders what prompts the fake pages. She said some teenagers contacted her younger daughter, 14, saying they had locked Brittanee in a basement.

"She has a hard enough time, day by day, dealing with being a teenager and having her sister missing," Dawn Drexel said on Friday. "It's pretty sick that people do that and think nothing of it."

Drexel hopes that anyone with true information about her daughter would come forward instead of hiding behind a webpage. And she hopes that someone does.

"I've been working on her case for over two and a half years, and the holidays are very, very, very difficult for me," Drexel said.

This week, while decorating her Christmas tree, she placed a new ornament on the branches for each of her three children. While hanging Brittanee's ornament, she broke down.

This, she said, was her daughter's favorite time of the year.

Reach Allyson Bird at 937-5594 or on Twitter at @allysonjbird.

http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2...s-on-facebook/

http://helpfindbrittaneedrexel.com/ has some updates

[PCP777]

OMG

What commercial?

One person used Drexel's photo to participate in an online promotion, and the picture wound up on a commercial that ran during the Super Bowl, Caison said.

[g r ee n ey e s]

OMG

What commercial?

Yeah, that is fucked up.

[Olivia]

Another woman missing in Myrtle Beach

Myrtle Beach Police are looking for a young woman who went missing while on a vacation.

Tabitha Irene Hammer, 24 was reported missing by her boyfriend's family she was while vacationing with them in Myrtle Beach on Aug. 2.

She is described a white female, 5-foot 4-inches in height, 115 pounds, with brown hair/brown eyes and was last seen wearing a black sparkly shirt with ripped blue jeans (sparkles on the rear pockets) and brown flip flops, police said.

Hammer, who was vacationing from Sevierville, Tennessee was last seen in the area of 21st Avenue North and Ocean Boulevard, police said.

Please contact the Myrtle Beach Police Department 843 918 1382 if you have seen her or know of her whereabouts

http://www2.wbtw.com/news/2012/aug/0...e--ar-4271425/

[FemmeFatality]

Monday, Oct 8, 2012
Posted on Sun, Oct. 07, 2012
Family holds vigil in honor of Brittanee Drexel’s 21st birthday


Family of Brittanee Drexel gathered by the tree of hope planted in her honor in Grand Park at The Market Common on Sunday night to celebrate her 21st birthday.

The Rochester, N.Y., girl went missing in April 2009 during a spring break trip to Myrtle Beach when she was 17.

“It is Brittanee’s 21st birthday,” said her mother Dawn Drexel as she fought back tears. “I remember when she was a baby. She wanted to do a lot of things for her birthday and someone took that away from us.”

The Drexel family traveled from New York to hold a candlelight vigil on Brittanee’s birthday.

“Every time we get her face out there, we get tips and we get leads in her case,” Dawn Drexel said.

Brittanee Drexel was last seen leaving the Blue Water Hotel on Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach on April 25, 2009. Her case has been profiled on dozens of local and national television shows, billboards and websites.

Surfside Beach resident Julie Pollard said she moved to the area in July but had heard about the Drexel family’s search for Brittanee. She and her daughter brought birthday balloons to the vigil.

“I just [wanted] to show my support to the family. I have four daughters and four granddaughters and just can’t even imagine what they’re going through,” she said. “I just hope and pray that Brittanee comes home safe and sound.”

Dawn Drexel said more searches are planned for her daughter in the near future.

“We’re never going to stop looking for her until she’s back with us,” she said.

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/201...-honor-of.html

[rachy]

Brittanee Drexel's family releases age-progressed image 3 years after teen's disappearance



Three years after a New York teenager disappeared while on spring break in Myrtle Beach, the girl's family has released an age-progressed sketch in hopes their daughter is still alive and someone might recognize her.

Brittanee Drexel, a 17-year-old high school junior from the Rochester, N.Y., area, was last seen on surveillance video leaving a popular Myrtle Beach hotel along Ocean Boulevard in April 2009. The girl had traveled to South Carolina with a group of friends and without her mother's permission. A video camera at the Blue Water Resort captured her leaving the hotel on April 25 close to 9 p.m., police said. The footage is the last known sighting of her.

On Wednesday, the CUE Center of Missing Persons, with the help of the family, produced a sketch by forensic artist Diana Trepkov of what Drexel might look like at age 21.

“I was so overwhelmed by what she gave us just before the holidays, the beauty of what I know my daughter would really look like today, a little older, a new hair style, but still the beautiful little girl that peeks through those eyes of hers; it is a bittersweet gift,” Drexel's mother, Dawn Drexel, said.

The distraught mom told FoxNews.com that she hopes the image might generate leads in the case. She noted an unusual detail that her daughter's right eye is smaller than her left.

Police said Drexel, a petite blonde and avid soccer player, had left a group of male friends from Rochester at the Blue Water Resort to walk back to the Bar Harbor Hotel, where she was staying with other girls.

After leaving the Blue Water hotel, Drexel texted her boyfriend back home to say she was headed for her hotel, but security video confirmed she never made it, police said.

Myrtle Beach detectives said they believe Drexel was abducted as she walked the one-mile stretch of Ocean Boulevard between the two hotels.

Dawn Drexel has claimed repeatedly that the teenagers who last saw her daughter have not been forthcoming in providing key information.

"I'm convinced they know more than they're saying," she said. "They will not speak with me to this day. Not one person that was with my daughter contacted me to help. They showed no empathy."

But in an interview last February, detectives revealed that a convicted child rapist is being eyed as a "person of interest" in Drexel's disappearance. Police said Raymond Moody, a registered Level 3 sex offender, was in the Myrtle Beach area the same weekend the teenager vanished.

Investigator Phillip Hanna of the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office said a signal from Drexel’s cellphone was detected about 50 miles south of Myrtle Beach later that night – in a remote boat landing area near the South Santee River and roughly 8 miles from the Sunset Lodge apartments in Georgetown County where Moody had been living at the time.

Moody served 21 years of a 40-year prison sentence after he abducted a girl from a California playground and sexually assaulted her in 1983. His convictions include three counts of rape with force and violence; two counts of lewd behavior on a child under the age of 14; and one count of assault with intent to commit mayhem, according to a state sex offender database on the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division's website.

Anyone with information on Drexel's whereabouts is urged to call the Myrtle Beach Police Department at (843) 918-1963.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/12/05...est=latestnews

http://www.wmbfnews.com/story/202620...ittanee-drexel

[g r ee n ey e s]

[Ron_NYC]

Age progression?

Aw man, you guys may want to sit down for this. I have something to tell you.

[krazegirl]

She looks younger in the Age progression

[FemmeFatality]

really, I dont think she'd wear her hair like that.

[beli]

it looks like some shit you get walking down a beach strand from a guy drawing cartoons.

[McMama]

Yeah, no.

[Olivia]

Why do they even bother doing these? Surely there is some computer program they can use

[Ron_NYC]

AM I THE ONLY ONE THAT KNOWS SHE'S DEAD!?!?

[Olivia]

AM I THE ONLY ONE THAT KNOWS SHE'S DEAD!?!?

Better age progression?

[Ron_NYC]

AM I THE ONLY ONE THAT KNOWS SHE'S DEAD!?!?


Here's a time progression I found:

[Ron_NYC]

Damn it, Liv!

[beli]

i dont think she's dead. i think she was kidnapped and sold into some sex slave crap.

[g r ee n ey e s]

AM I THE ONLY ONE THAT KNOWS SHE'S DEAD!?!?

This was pretty much my sentiment when they came out with this age progression pic. How often do they ever find the girl alive this far out?

Fucking Olivia..